What do you do when your pet has cancer?

alafairnadia · October 2006

I just found out this evening that my cat (who had a biopsy on Tuesday) has cancer. I put the vet off (a really wonderful woman at Hope, fwiw) til tomorrow re: discussion options, partly because I'm totally overwhelmed and upset. Alafair, the cat that has cancer, is basically acting like herself - purring and grooming and using the litterbox and excited about food. so I don't think I need to put her to sleep just yet. but I'm trying to figure out how much pet care is too much. I mean, I won't give her chemo or anything, but what about surgery? my head is spinning.

anyway, I guess I'm wondering if any of you have had pets with cancer and what you did and how you felt.

I feel really terrible because work has been crazy (like working 110 hours a week crazy), so I'm kinda an emotional mess because of lack of sleep, so this news is pretty upsetting and it means I've not been paying a lot of healthy, happy attention to my pets lately. which just makes me feel guilty.

whyfi · October 2006

Sorry to hear - it's a tough thing to deal with...

When our little Abbey started showing signs of her sickness, it was a tough thing to do, but the decision pretty clear - her quality of life was shot and, at best, she had months to live, but only with a huge amount of medical intervention.

Your decision is going to be tougher, I think, and I don't envy you in that regard. How old is she? What are the chances that surgery will be successful, and how much longer would/could it give her?

I guess that the only other thing I'll mention is this - what you do will be as much (if not more) for you as for her - cats, even more so than dogs, are stoic little bastards when it comes to their own problems. She'll never complain, never feel sorry for herself - she'll just keep loving you 'til she can't anymore, whether it's a month from now or a years from now.

What do you do when your pet has cancer?

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